


everything i could want is in front, not behind me

by lazyfish



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: 5+1 Things, Getting Together, Multi, Polyamory
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-02
Updated: 2018-12-02
Packaged: 2019-09-05 22:52:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,605
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16820059
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lazyfish/pseuds/lazyfish
Summary: Five times Bobbi, Mack, Hunter, and Elena ask each other to trust them - and the one time they don't have to.





	everything i could want is in front, not behind me

Bobbi has never been a fan of saying that things couldn’t possibly get worse; it feels like an invitation to the universe, a challenge, even. But sitting here, she honestly cannot see a single way that her situation could be less dire. She’s tied to Hunter. The rope is thick and sturdy, and obviously well-cared for, because there’s not a single portion of it that’s rotted. No one else even knows they’re here. They have no backup and no escape plan. So yeah, things can’t get any worse.

Then there’s an explosion, and once again Bobbi regrets the thought, because _seriously_ ? A fucking _explosion_? Dying was already going to suck. She didn’t want to die because she was asphyxiated because the whole place caught on fire because of an explosion. (Really. An explosion. What the _fuck_.)

She’s not sure whether things are about to get better or even worse when the door to the room they’re being held in opens. Hunter’s the one facing the door, and Bobbi mentally braces for whatever sarcastic remark he’s going to make to the new arrival.

“Who the hell are _you_?” Hunter spits.

“I can’t explain right now, but I need you to trust me.” The voice sends off a ping of recognition in Bobbi’s head, but without a visual cue she has no hope for identifying it. A moment later, impossibly quickly, the ropes have been untied.

“How did you -”

“ _Move_!” Their savior interrupts. Bobbi stands shakily, trying to move the blood back into her limbs after being confined into the same position for hours. This doesn’t seem to please the woman who had rescued them, who is already herding Hunter towards the exit. Bobbi’s nostrils flare as she manhandles him. At least the anger and adrenaline are helping her gain her legs easier.

They’re shepherded out of the warehouse and onto a nearby field that’s soggy with rain. Bobbi hardly spares a backwards glance towards the half-destroyed skeleton of the building. She’s too busy looking at the uniforms of the people buzzing around them - all emblazoned with an eagle.

“Bob…” Hunter has reached the same realization that she has. They can’t be seen around S.H.I.E.L.D., for everyone’s sakes. She doesn’t know how they’re going to escape when there’s a veritable swarm of agents, including the woman who had rescued them. She’s watching them closely, almost curiously, and Bobbi once again feels a niggle of familiarity.

A crackle of static bursts through a loudspeaker, but an announcement doesn’t follow, at least not out loud. The woman has a comm in her ear, though, and she appears to be listening to it intently.

“Come with me,” she says abruptly, beckoning with one of her metal hands. Hunter looks at Bobbi, and she inclines her chin slightly. They’re not in any state to escape, and while it makes her nervous, if she’s with Hunter…

The woman, who has still failed to introduce herself, doesn’t need to push through the crowd; the agents part before her. She’s someone important. The field squelches beneath their feet, and Bobbi has to reach to catch Hunter when he stumbles in the thick mud. The woman checks over her shoulder when she finds they’re not behind her, and Bobbi tries her best not to glare at her. Hunter’s okay - he had just gotten his feet a little stuck in the slop - but Bobbi doesn’t like this. Trusting at all is not her forte, let alone trusting blindly.

Their final destination is a Quinjet that only becomes visible when they’re a dozen yards away. Another silent conversation passes between her and Hunter before they agree to board the jet. Bobbi doesn’t get the impression they’re prisoners, but they’re certainly not guests.

They’re led to the interrogation room, which never bodes well. Bobbi’s just glad they’re not being separated. She can’t tolerate another interrogation spending the whole time wondering if Hunter’s okay. At least she won’t be tortured this time, hopefully.

The woman with the metal arms leaves them alone in the interrogation room. The first thing Bobbi does is reach over to grab Hunter’s hand, taking comfort in the familiarity of it in the midst of a strange day that is only about to get stranger.

The door opens, and -

“Mack?” Maybe her eyes are deceiving her.

Or maybe, for the first time, she was right to trust someone.

—-

It’s been a week since the world turned upside down. Mack hadn’t gone into the sting expecting to find Bobbi and Hunter; they had just wanted to cross the warehouse off, since it was a possible HYDRA hideyhole that was seeing more activity than usual. He never would have guessed that the reason it was being used was to hold his best friends. He was lucky that Elena had recognized them and subsequently rescued them. Just another reason to love her.

In the days since their return to S.H.I.E.L.D. as guests rather than agents, Bobbi and Hunter had been skittish at best. They never seemed to be out of arm’s reach of each other, and Mack swore that they were avoiding him. They seemed to be avoiding everyone, though. Mack supposed that made sense; they were someplace that should’ve been familiar, but wasn’t. The people they thought they had known had changed, traumas adding up to make them almost unrecognizable.

Bobbi and Hunter’s return had also brought up something that he needed to discuss with Elena. Honestly, he probably should have talked about it sooner, but he’d never known how. He still doesn’t know how, but it needs to be talked about.

Mack returned to their bunk, pleased to find Elena already in bed thumbing through a well-worn paperback. The best part of his day was always coming home to her, and Mack didn’t think that was going to change anytime soon.

She makes room for him on the bed, allowing him to slip under the comforter and out of the chilly air of the base. Mack understands, logically, why most of S.H.I.E.L.D.’s bases are underground, but damn him if the constant cold and dampness isn’t more than a bit annoying. Elena tucks herself into his side, setting her book down so her hands are free to twine through his.

“I want to talk with you about Bobbi and Hunter,” Mack says.

“They’ve been having a hard time settling in. I think we -”

“Not about now. About before.” Mack doesn’t like interrupting Elena, but he knows any other conversation they have about his friends will be different after what he has to say. Mack clears his throat, shifting nervously.

“I need you to trust me when I say that all of this is in the past,” Mack begins. “And that I should have told you sooner, and I’m sorry for that.”

Elena doesn’t pull away from him - if anything, she moves closer, her body a comforting weight against him as he struggles to find the right words for what he means. “Bobbi and Hunter and I were…”

“Lovers,” Elena finishes. “I know.”

“You know?” He repeats, dumbstruck. He hadn’t told anyone about his relationship with Bobbi and Hunter, not when it was happening and not after. It wasn’t like he wanted - or needed - to keep it a secret, but it was private. It was his. After they were gone, it felt even more important that he had something of them that he didn’t have to share.

“I know what it looks like when you are in love, _mi amor_ ,” Elena says. “I thought before, but when you saw them again, I knew.”

“I’m sorry,” Mack says. What else is he supposed to say? He loves Elena - that is indubitable. But Bobbi and Hunter had been ghosts, stories that had ended in the middle of a sentence. He loves Elena, but there is a part of him that aches for what could have been.

“Don’t apologize,” Elena reprimands. “I know your heart, Mack. I know where it belongs.”

He kisses her then, slow and sweet and smooth. He knows where his heart belongs, too. It belongs with her.

\---

Lance Hunter’s reputation precedes him. Everyone had had something to say when he and Bobbi had come back to the base, but while Bobbi’s whispers were mostly of her prowess as an agent, the rumors about Hunter had a more personal flavor. There were a lot that mentioned his fondness for women, and more still that mentioned his fondness for beer. Still, despite all the chatter, Elena doesn’t feel like she knows anymore about Hunter than what she’s already learned from Mack’s few stories. 

But what she’s learned from Mack’s stories doesn’t compare to what she’s learned herself from spending time with Hunter. He’s not the womanizing alcoholic that the rumors painted him as. Elena wouldn’t have liked him if he was.

She likes him, though. He’s funny, passionate, kind, and unexpectedly patient. He asks interesting questions and gives interesting answers. He’s suitably impressed when he hears the stories of her work in Colombia, and even gives her a horrible, _horrible_ rendition of some Spanish drinking song he had learned when he was in the British Air Force.

She doesn’t realize she might be a little in trouble until they’re in the common room together, playing Go Fish.

“Do you have an _ocho_?” And yes, part of the reason they’re playing Go Fish is so that she can teach him some Spanish that isn’t sexual innuendo. Numbers are an easy way to start.

“ _¡Pesca!_ ” Hunter says. He smiles at her, and her heart honest-to-God skips a beat. She has no trouble at all understanding what Mack saw in Hunter, because underneath the veneer of uncaring, he’s just a goofball with a heart of gold. Why is it that as soon as Mack had written off a relationship with Bobbi and Hunter, Elena begins to consider it as a real possibility?

“Are you sure?” Elena asks teasingly. She seems to remember Hunter asking for eights early in the game.

“Don’t you trust me?” Hunter rejoins, eyes sparkling. He lifts his hand up to draw a cross over the center of his chest. “I promise I don’t have any eights.”

“Pinky swear?” Elena asks. She likes pinky swears, even if the idea is a bit strange to her.

“Pinky swear.” Hunter links his pinky with hers. But then he does something Mack’s never done before - he kisses her thumb. Elena’s eyebrows shoot up.

“It’s a part of the promise!” Hunter insists. “Here, you do it too.” He offers his thumb to her, and Elena has no choice but to kiss it, too. Warmth is spreading up her arm, and her lips feel oddly hot, too. 

She can’t seem to focus right for the rest of the game.

\---

The sound of a body hitting a mat echoes through the empty gym, and Bobbi grins down at Mack before offering him a hand up.

“Still got it,” Bobbi says. She gives him a rare smile, and Mack tries to ignore the starburst of warmth in his chest. He and Elena have been talking more and more about his feelings for his ex-partners, and her feelings for them, too. Everything is confusing, because Mack had never anticipated that he’d need to talk to Elena about the possibility of adding more people to their relationship, and they’re also trying to talk about a potential relationship without two of its members.

They both want to be sure, though. There’s so much to lose, and so many things that are still uncertain. Getting a read on Bobbi is as hard as ever, and Mack doesn’t know if she and Hunter are interested in rebuilding what they’d had. From what Mack could tell the years they spent on their own had hardened them even more than their respective careers had previously. Apparently, S.H.I.E.L.D. was intent on traumatizing everyone, not just active-duty agents.

“No one ever doubted that you lost it, Barbara.” Mack rubs at his shoulder, which had taken the brunt of the impact when he had gone down. “You’re not gonna try to tell me to flip again, are you?” The memory of the absolute ridiculousness of Bobbi suggesting that someone of his size try to flip was seared onto his brain, possibly for the rest of his life. (What happened in the shower afterwards was also seared onto his brain, but that was hardly appropriate.)

“I dunno, big guy,” Bobbi’s eyes take on a teasing glint that she seemed to have learned from Hunter. “Your new girl seems to be the kind to like some very gymnastic coital activities.”

Mack knows that this is absolutely not the point of Bobbi’s jibe, but the fact that she had thought about his and Elena’s sex life warms him from the inside out. He wants to believe that it’s because she wants something more than just the friendship that they’ve struck up again, but Mack also doesn’t want to jump the gun. All he can think is that he’s lucky that his skin doesn’t show a blush as easily as Hunter’s, or he’d be in a world of trouble.

“She’s the one who does the flipping.” He winks, trying to make it seem like light hearted teasing, but something is missing from it. “Kind of reminds you of old times, doesn’t it?” And there it is: the first, and maybe only, acknowledgement that before, things had been different for them.

Bobbi’s eyes harden, her smile disappearing in the blink of an eye. “Maybe it’s better if we just forget about the old times.” She brushes her hair off her sweaty forehead. “Are we going another round?”

“Trust me,” Mack says softly. “It’s better to remember than to forget.” He’s not just talking about them; he’s carried other burdens with him a long, long while, and every one became easier to bear when he stopped pretending he wasn’t carrying it.

”Maybe for you, but I -” Bobbi’s voice breaks. “I’m not that strong, Mack.”

It’s the most vulnerable he’s seen her since she sat, teary-eyed, in a Russian bar. The shot of tequila she had held was the last line of connection between him and her - and that’s why he hadn’t finished it. He couldn’t bear to let the line snap and lose her forever.

“You are.” Mack hugs Bobbi because he can’t kiss her. He holds her tight, because just like always, he knows he’s going to have to let go.

\---

As far as unfair situations go, this is la creme de la creme, if you ask Hunter. First of all, returning to S.H.I.E.L.D.? Not all that it’s cracked up to be. After literally saving all of their arses by breaking Fitz out of prison and sending him to the future, he’d have thought they’d at least be willing to admit that he was somewhat competent. But nope, everyone’s still stuck in the whole ‘Hunter is a man-child’ thing. And yes, that is a huge reason why he’s avoiding everyone. If they’re just going to be dicks instead of believing that people can grow and change, then he’s going to let them.

That aside, though, there’s still about three hundred _billion_ different reasons this situation is unfair. Example: Alphonso Mackenzie and Elena Rodriguez. It is utterly, completely, _totally_ unfair that they are both so beautiful, and both so close, and both untouchable.

He tells Bobbi as much, and she just shakes her head at him. “We haven’t exactly given them a reason to believe _we’re_ not the untouchable ones.”

Damn Bobbi and her logical thinking. He hates when she’s right. It would make sense if Mack thought that Hunter was avoiding him, since Hunter kind of was. His ex had fallen under the umbrella of the people Hunter was avoiding, mostly because of the company he kept as Director. May was his right-hand and she still hadn’t forgiven him for whatever transgression she imagined he had made.

“D’you think that they’d say yes, if we asked?” Hunter and Bobbi had talked about getting back together with Mack, until it had become obvious that he was with Elena - then they had talked about getting with both of them. It’s not like it’s out of the realm of possibility. Except that neither of them really want to ask; Bobbi because it would be showing all of her cards, and Hunter because Elena is one of the only people he has a friend, and he doesn’t want to ruin that.

“I don’t know, honey.” Bobbi runs her fingers through his hair. Hunter leans into the touch, finding comfort in the slow, hypnotic motion. Bob is still the one he trusts above anyone else. She knows how to read people, and how to assess risk. If she had said that Mack and Elena would say yes, then he would already be out the door to ask them.

“But maybe we should try anyways.” Hunter’s head snaps up, his eyes meeting Bobbi’s. “You’re miserable. I’m miserable. Maybe I’m wrong, but I think Mack’s a little miserable, too.” She sighs. “We thought we’d never see him again, Hunter. If there’s even a _chance_ he’ll say yes…” Bobbi cards her fingers through his hair again, and Hunter understands everything that she doesn’t say. Losing Mack had changed them, and how they looked at love. If they have the chance to undo some of that damage, and gain everything that being in a relationship with Elena will bring, too, then don’t they owe it to themselves at least to try?

Bobbi has never been selfish, Hunter realizes. She’s always looking for the bigger picture, the greater good. She’s the one who takes the bullet for someone else. She had never done anything just because she wants to, and now, she’s considering it - considering making the selfish choice.

It’s all he needs to jump off the bed, pulling her with him. “Hunter -”

“Come on.” Even if this ends badly, he’ll have let Bobbi be selfish for once in her life. That’s enough of a reason to take a risk. “Trust me, Bob.”

The blood pounds in his ears as he drags her through the base, towards the bunk that Mack and Elena share. Hunter knocks on the door as soon as they reach it, afraid that any hesitation will send them back to their own room empty-handed.

Elena opens the door, and Hunter doesn’t wait for an invitation before entering the room, pulling Bobbi in behind him. Elena accepts their intrusion without comment, eyes slightly wide. When the door is shut again, Hunter swallows. He’s never been good at grand gestures or dramatic speeches. Which means it’s going to be something simple, or nothing at all.

“I want to kiss you,” he points to Elena, “and you,” his finger moves to Mack, “and hell will freeze over before I don’t want to kiss her,” he jabs his thumb over his shoulder to Bobbi, “so can we please all kiss each other?”

Definitely not elegant, but it seems to get the job done. Elena glances over her shoulder at Mack, and seems to like what she sees. She promptly attaches her mouth to Hunter’s, and he groans at the warmth of her lips and the rightness of the moment. They had waited too long for this, and he doesn’t want to wait a moment longer.

Elena’s legs wrap around his hips and he walks them over to the bed, where Bobbi is on top of Mack, kissing him furiously.

They don’t exit the room for a long, long time after that.

\---

They’re on a mission, together. Mack is reluctant to do fieldwork nowadays - wouldn’t it be awful if S.H.I.E.L.D. needed to find a new Director because their current one got shot or something? - and even more reluctant to do it with just the four of them. It feels like favoritism of some sort, even though they definitely weren’t going on the most comfortable of missions. In fact, it was the opposite; Mack only sent in his team when the situation was well and truly dire.

This mission is a minefield, in more ways than one. Daisy had dropped in to quake all of the mines - a trick she had apparently done before - but Mack didn’t want her in the field. She still had a lot of healing of all kinds to do before he’d be comfortable putting her on active duty again. Besides, the team couldn’t use her as a crutch.

Mack honestly doesn’t know what decision he’s supposed to make. He knows the one that he wants to make, but it doesn’t feel like enough. It’s one of those times he wishes he could revive Coulson and ask him what he was supposed to do. He doesn’t have those moments often, but being the one with all of the responsibility is _hard_. If something goes wrong, it’s all on him.

“Mack?” Bobbi’s voice crackles over the comms. “What’s our orders?” She is calm despite the pressing circumstances, and Mack draws strength from her steady presence. He knows that Hunter and Elena are waiting, too.

He doesn’t allow himself any further hesitation; he had already considered every plan of action at least twice over - he knows what he wants to do. He just needs to know that his team is going to trust him. Mack’s opening his mouth to say as much when he realizes: he doesn’t have to ask for their trust. He has it.

“Alright, here’s the plan…”

**Author's Note:**

> Surprise. :)


End file.
